Gemini 5 Technical Debriefing, Part II, 1965

This is a preliminary Part II transcript of the Gemini 5 (GT-5) flight crew debriefing, prepared by the Spacecraft Operations Branch of NASA's Flight Crew Support Division and dated September 2, 1965. It records astronauts Cooper and Conrad at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy. They discuss how the spacecraft systems worked, including the platform and the OAMS thruster failures. The transcript also covers operational checks, visual sightings, experiments, training, premission planning, and medical aspects. It was originally classified Confidential.

From the source:Release of 2026-06-12 Incident: August 30 - September 2, 1965, Cape Kennedy, Florida. This document is a preliminary transcript (Part II) derived from voice recordings of the Gemini 5 flight crew technical debriefing. NASA conducted this debriefing between August 30, 1965, and September 2, 1965, at the Crew Quarters, Cape Kennedy, Florida. Astronauts L. Gordon Cooper and Charles “Pete” Conrad described observing debris and “snow” and “all sorts of glittering pieces of this, that and the other thing” in the “Visual Sightings” section of the document (pages 157-220).

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Cooper Reentry--Number 1- - Adapter Separation . No doubt .
We set the Magazine at l/60th of a seccnd- - 4 pictures
We took 4 pi ctures of the moon on Magazine 10 at
l/120th.
Conrad At that time period shortly, thereafter 16 :30 . In
the meantime we wer e making and r ecording IR
measurements of the moon so we have 12 pictures of
the moon on the three camera backs using 3400 film ,
3401 f ilm , and 8443 film . And that was sequence 3
with the Questar lens, visual acquisition mode .
Now; we did not track with the per iscope . We found
that the boresight was good enough and we didn ' t
want to mess anything up so Gordo did all the
tracking with the r eticle .
Cooper We mentioned before, but we might menti,m again that
when the reticle wa s exactly bor esighted on some
object like the moon or a star so was the Questar
lens. It was right on the money.
Conrad Yes , r eally good boresight .
Cooper And t he radar was also right on .
Conrad D-4/D- 7 , 422 was done at the sa1J?~ t.i;ae . Do you want
·to cover that now seeing they wer e done together, or
do you want to wait until we get over into D- 4?